Ireland

The Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes continues its tax resistance
campaign in Ireland.

The government introduced a set of amendments to the tax that are aimed at
quieting the dissent, but campaign spokesman Bill Michael O’Brien says that,
“the only change that can save this government is to scrap the property tax
completely.”

Britain

The government is instituting something its foes are calling the
“Bedroom Tax” — essentially a cut in the housing benefit
of people who get government assistance in paying their rent, if the
government deems their home to be too large for their needs.

In other words, if you have two children and each has their own room, the
government may say: why don’t you move into a smaller place and double-up?
If you have a spare room, the government may say: you probably should rent
that out to a lodger — we’re only going to help you pay for the rooms you need.

A veteran of the 1980s anti-poll tax movement [Liz Kitching] says she is not
going anywhere. “I feel worried, frightened, upset. But at the same time I am
proud of the campaign and that does give me a little bit of confidence and
hope because we did stop the poll tax. I am not a victim. This is a policy I
am fighting back against.”

Spain

From Conscientious Objection to Tax Resistance

The economist Arcadi Oliveres is president of the Justice & Peace
foundation, an organization that supported the first conscientious objectors
[to military service]. For 30 years it has promoted war tax resistance; in
total there are 3,000 people across the country who refuse to pay the
Treasury a portion of their taxes proportional to the Defense budget.

Oliveres gives an example with quantities that illustrate how this action is
done: “If you are asked to pay 1,000 euros to the Treasury and during the
year you have paid 800, when you make your tax return in June, 200 euros will
remain to be paid. Well, if the Defense budget is 5% [of the federal budget],
from these 200 you refuse to pay 10 euros. But you want to show that you
don’t pay because of your disapproval of military spending and not because
you don’t want to contribute. So you make your contribution of 10 euros to a
non-governmental organization and ask for the receipt. When you make your tax
return, you write a note explaining that you refuse a part of your taxes
destined for Defense and provide the receipt from the donation you have made
to the non-governmental organization.” What happens next? “If they happen to
check your return (because it is proven that they do not check them all) they
will send you a letter demanding the 10 euros. You ignore it and then they
come back and send another letter in which, in addition to the 10 euros, they
require of you 20 more for interest. Further demands follow and finally they
will end up seizing the amount that remains from your bank account.”

To end up paying not only the quantity remaining to pay in your tax return,
but also the interest, does not discourage Oliveres because “freedoms
throught history never have been given, they have been captured.” He
emphasizes that to avoid a year and a half in the army, the pioneering
conscientious objectors spent three in jail, and, although the number of
people in Spain doing tax resistance can be described as a “lackluster
result,” he adds that “it is an educational and pressure tactic.”

When the Fuse Lights…

To violate the rule carries a punishment, normally in the form of a fine.
“I understand that people want to take these actions as a type of protest,”
explains María Teresa Saez, spokesperson for the Professional Association of
Magistrates. “I think it is quite legitimate but has to assume the
consequences and this will be implicit in such protest.”

Josep Casadellà was clear that he was doing an act of civil disobedience when
he decided not to pay for passing a tollbooth on the road to Barcelona by
Girona. Joseph says that “I’ve already paid too long; 43 years paying for
some highways doesn’t match up, it cannot be and that’s that.” In
March 2012 he went by car with his son and
heard on the radio some statements from the Minister of Development Ana
Pastor who said they were going to bail out the highway deficit in Madrid
with the income from the highways of Catalonia and elsewhere that were in
surplus. Then he denied, but at this moment, he says, he would pass through
the tollbooth, and said the now-famous phrase
“no vull pagar” (“I don’t want to
pay”). They recorded it, posted it on YouTube, and lit the fuse.

Over the following weekends, people imitated Josep and made the same
statement. Thus, thousands of refusals to pay the tolls: Something previously
unheard of. Although it wasn’t the first time that Josep called for
disobedience: the previous year there had been a campaign on Facebook on
11 September 2011 — the National Day of
Catalonia — for people not to pay tolls. “And I did it myself,” he jokes. Why
did it not work then and then yes one month later? “I think that it was the
right time,” Josep says. In matters of civil disobedience there needs to be a
fuse and a spark, but if there is no explosive there will be no bang. “It was
a very particular time, with the crisis on one hand and on the other the
media that published it… and all together it pulled the trigger.”

…and the Fuse Fizzles

We followed in Catalona: in different weekends during
the Spring of 2012 there have been some
50,000 refusals to pay tolls on the part of 25,000 people, according to the
“no vull pagar” platform, and Albertis, the tollbooth operator, made an
appeal to the government. Fines of 100 euros began to arrive and the protest
deflated. “When I first did the ‘no vull pagar,’ I was conscious that I was
breaking a rule, a decree that comes each year with fees to be paid. So I was
aware that it was an act of civil disobedience that could result in
repercussions against me. Now I don’t know if the people who later refused to
pay the toll were also conscious of this,” explains Josep. Fines that, on the
other hand, were not legal and that could be appealed since at that time it
was considered a contactural infraction and it was the operator, Albertis,
and not the Catalan Traffic Service that was responsible for reporting
drivers who had not paid the toll. Furthermore, Josep says that so far he has
not paid anything because he has been making appeals.

The “no vull pagar” campaign has had an impact, though not in the form that
the promoters of the protest would have liked: In the general budget for
2013, the government has changed the law to
allow sanctioning, now indeed, of people who refuse to pay a toll. If to this
we add the new court fees it is easy to understand the discouragement of even
the promoter of the idea, who has opted not to use toll roads. Nevertheless,
the campaign continues to brainstorm new demonstrations to maintain the
protest. For now they will demand accountability for using the highway code
to punish an act, failure to pay, that was not punishable at the time.

Nuanced Disobedience

We resumed the conversation with Martí Olivellas, who tells us that, 40 years
after the campaign for conscientious objection [to military service], he is
about to launch a new civil disobedience campaign called “A call to civil
disobedience for civil rights and against the financial dictatorship.”
According to Martí this concerns reviving a campaign made three years ago
called “Pledge for fiscal transparency” that included not paying the Treasury
and depositing the money in an ethical bank account, until the government
could explain with transparency how it was spending the taxes. Now the
campaign is resuming but in order to be huge they intend to make their
deposit in the Government Depository, an administrative body of the Economic
Ministry that is charged with the management and control of securities and
deposits that have been made with the Civil Administration. Martí Olivellas
says that “you’re not evading. What you say is that the day on which they
[the government] have the transparency law, end corruption, and know how to
manage our money, I’ll pay my taxes that I have retained in the Depository.”
But until then, you are not failing to pay but are retaining the money in an
account in the same agency, are we still talking about civil disobedience?
“This is a very nuanced action of disobedience and is intended for the
general public. But everyone can modulate the risk: for example sending that
which you have to pay to the Treasury in an interest-free loan to a social
entity that should have received money from the State but has not received
it.” And do they think anything will happen next? “We hope so, next 16
February there is a gathering which will finish the outline. And then tax
season begins. It is the right moment.” At that time we will see if society
is willing, or not ready, to disobey.

Catalan separatists are trying to keep Catalan taxes in Catalonia, and some
have used tax resistance strategies — including paying their federal taxes
directly to the Catalan local government.

Chile

Guillermo Durand Cornejo,
president of the government-owned mining monopoly Codelco, and a legislative
representative, called on Salteños (citizens of Salta, Chile) to refuse to pay
a municipal tax, in the wake of property tax increases and new taxes in
electricity and water bills.

“Until such time as the mayor gives a response to the people concerning the
tax hike, I suggest that you do not pay this month’s municipal tax,” he said.
“I call for civil disobedience.”

Cornejo says he views the thirty-day tax strike as a wake up call for the
government, and suggests that strikers who restrict their strike to the single
month will not be subject to government reprisals.

Italy

The tactic has a name, redditometro, and it involves a
detailed “lifestyle” audit that tips off tax authorities to noncompliance. If
the police observe an Italian resident living the high life (for instance, by
zooming around in an expensive sports car) they can stop the individual and
demand their taxpayer identification numbers, regardless of whether any
criminal offense has taken place. The information is conveyed to the tax
authorities, the Agenzia delle Entrate, which subsequently audits the driver.
On audit, revenue officials ask probing questions about how the taxpayer was
able to afford the fancy wheels given their meager reported income.

Nowadays being seen driving a Ferrari isn’t so cool; it has become a glaring
audit flag. Ditto for renting a weekend villa in the Tuscan hill country, or
applying for membership at a Ligurian yacht club. And don’t even think about
heli-skiing at Cortina. Other activities being monitored include shopping for
high-end fashion items. So think twice before you hit the Gucci boutique.

Redditometro was approved by Parliament in
2010, but wasn’t widely enforced until
January 2013. Most Italians don’t like the
practice. They find it intrusive. Piero Ostellino, an Italian news
commentator, recently told the BBC: “I’m
against the Redditometro not because I’m in favor of evading
taxes, I don’t think tax collection should be done by trampling on individual
liberties.” He then added, “I would like to live in a country where a
cardinal can, every month, buy a pornographic magazine without having to
explain this to the tax authorities. This is like the former East Germany.”

Greece

Tax resistance continues in Greece, where the government has been raising
taxes and reducing government benefits and services.

The numbers could have been worse as the government gained revenues from
doubled property taxes and big hikes in income taxes that have hit most
Greeks except for tax cheats who continue to largely escape sacrifice or
prosecution.

Direct tax revenues increased by about 9 to 10 percent in
January compared with a year earlier. Given
the country’s devastating recession, which has created a record 26.8 percent
unemployment and is in its sixth year, the only options left for the
government is to collect from tax evaders and improve tax collections,
although tax hikes have led to many more Greeks trying to hide their income,
statistics showed.

Meanwhile, the government won a court victory against the tollgate runners.
The Greek Supreme Court ruled against Oropos mayor John Oikonomakou who had
challenged his €200 fine for running the gate on the grounds that the toll and
fine money was being siphoned off by foreign companies rather than being used
for road maintenance and traffic safety.

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